Integrated circuits are usually produced by forming a plurality of integrated circuits on a semiconductor wafers. The individual integrated circuits are separated by saw or scribe lines. The finished integrated circuits are electrically tested while still being on the wafer, registered as working and non-working integrated circuits, and then separated into individual integrated circuits by sawing the wafer along the saw lines or utilizing a scribe method. The separated integrated circuits are normally placed on a film frame carrier in an order corresponding to the order when being on the wafer. Due to the registration in working and non-working integrated circuits, a pick-and-place system can pick up the working integrated circuits for further processing.
Particularly, if the saw lines are relatively narrow, virtually zero when utilizing laser-dicing, or almost zero when utilizing trench etching, then the foil of the film frame carrier has to be stretched to generate appropriate gaps between the individual integrated circuits such that the pick-and-place system can pick up the working integrated circuits. Tolerances of the gaps may result in a misaligned pick-and-place system in respect to the integrated circuits on the film frame carrier, potentially preventing the pick-and-place system to reliably picking up the appropriate integrated circuits. This may even be more pronounced if the integrated circuits are relatively small.